The Dark Crusades came about because of a necromancer. Aphotos the Dark, ruler of the undead, sought the magic of the Whirlpool of Danube.  Bearing witness to the awesome power of the Whirlpool of Danube and overcome with greed and desire to have that power for his own, Aphotos raised his army of the undead and marched with war to claim the power of the Whirlpool of Danube.  His vast army of undead was no match for the armies of the elves and the dwarves that guard the Whirlpool ceaselessly.  Aphotos and his vast army of undead was soundly defeated, he was captured, tried, and exiled into the east.
 After the necromancer, Orobrix, an adult green dragon was caught by the guardians of the Whirlpool of Danube in the midst of a scandal of bribery, lies, political coruption, schemes and plots on his way to claim the power of the Whirlpool of Danube.  The dragon fell to the magic of the fey, suing for peace and begging for its life, the dragon was given the choice to flee to the east or be tried for his crimes by the fey.  Orobrix chose exile and fled to the east.

  The dragon knew of the necromancer but only by reputation.  Orobrix sought Aphotos so that the necromancer could counter the magic of the fey, so that when he tried to usurp the power of the Whirlpool of Danube again the fey would not so easily defeat him.  Orobrix found Aphotos far in the east, broodin in a land of darkness, ruling as the God King of the myriad goblinoid tribes that filled that whole area.  The necromancer and the dragon became allies in thier hatred of the protectors of the power of the Whirlpool of Danube and they plotted their revenge.  In the east, they discovered huge swarms of orcs, battalion upon battalions of warring orc tribes.  Aphotos and Orobrix went among the orcs using power and fear to scare and intimidate them.  The orcs feared them and when they witnessed the necromancers power over the undead, they thought Aphotos was a god and they worshiped him and named him Prysm.  Aphotos and Orobrix had found the orcs split into a thousand different tribes all goverened by a thousand different war chiefs with little hope of ever uniting them into one unit much less an army.  So, together, necromancer and dragon forged for the orcs the Spear of Conquest and gave it to Chechin, an orc chief.  With the Spear of Conquest Chechin began the long slow process of conquering all the other orc cheiftains until only he remained.
  Aphotos returned to the south and found among the warring nations of goblinoids Odalug, the hobgoblin warlord, and forged for him the Battle Axe of Rulership.  With that magic weapon, Odalug took over command of the many platoons, battalians, and divisions of the many fueding hobgoblins.  When all was ready, Orobrix commanded Chechin to make war upon the protectors of the Whirlpool of Danube.  Chechin led a horde of orcs east and descended on the land of Fortune with war from the north.  Aphotos commanded Odulag to lead the armies of goblinoids and bring war to the Kingdom of Goldenshield from the south.  The land of Fortune was besieged.

 They faced the elves and dwarves and the magic of the fey, and this time, they were not so easily defended.  They pushed the front lines of the war to within twenty one miles of the Whirlpool of Danube, and there, in the midst of Wild Fox Meadow, the Necromancer had the undead erect the The Towers of Aphotos.  There, on the highest level of his tower, Aphotos tried his Gate spell again, and this time the solar where unaware of him.  In his training as a necromancer, Aphotos learned the name of a marilith, and it was that marilith that he called now, and she appeared.  A demon of the old world full of power and might, able to summon more of its kind, and, hidden by the power of the Whirlpool of Danube, did summon more of its kind, but the gate was a tiny pinpoint in the vastness that was the abyss.  Only two other demons came and they began to terrorize the fey, the elves, and the dwarves.  Those champions knew that if an army of demons was summoned, they could not hold and evil would gain control or the power of the magic of the Whirlpool of Danube.  With little hope left, they gathered thier forces and prepared to defend the Whirlpool until the end.
  That is when the Paladin King arrived with his army and devestated the undead, chased Orobrix away, toppled the Towers of Aphotos, conquered first the Orc hordes and then defeated and repelled the gobliniods.   Banished back to the east, the dragon and the necromancer would yearly send orc raids and goblinoid attacks against the Heros of the West but they would always end in defeat.  In the south, the necromancer tried to entice the fire giants to lead a coalition against the Heros of the West and after three years, he succeeded.  Dlas the Fire Giant led an orc army from the north against the new Kingdom of Goldenshield and had some success against the Baron of Green Savana Hills, but Dlas found himself alone, for the orc army had been decimated, and the Baron had held Dlas off long enough for the Paladin King himself to arrive.  And Dlas the Fire Giant never returned to his home in Mount Arasog in the Land of Defiant.  Nevertheless, Aphotos the Necromancer, learned from his failures, and he and the dragon coordinated their attacks to coincide with the foraging of the Fire Giants.  With much cajoling, he would entice more and more Fire Giants to lead attacks against the Kingdom of Men.  Every sixteen years, the Fire Giants would lead the gobliniods from the south and orcs would attack from the north and this was the birth of the Dark Crusades.  Every sixteen years, the enemies of men would unite and attack their realms.  The first Dark Crusade took men nearly two years to beat off.  It was nearly the same for both the second and third Dark Crusade.  And always would Aphotos the Necromancer and Orobrix the Green Dragon send armies to test the strength of the sons of men, and always those armies would be defeated.  Now, sixty four years have passed, and once again orc hordes sent by Orobrix rush in from the north to attack the Kingdom of Goldenshield.  Aphotos the Necromancer has aligned his myriad goblinoids with the advancing Fire Giants, until, deep in the hottest desert, during the heat of the hottest summer, Rhael the Fire Giant leads the goblinoids against the desert fortresses of the Kingdom of Men.  And the Marquee of the Realm of Goldenshield leads the defense at the fortress of Kahar.  The Firegiants would fail, the goblinoids would be defeated, the orcs would be chased back home.  Khalista had foreseen it all.  Deep in the desert, she would sieze Kahar and take it for her own.

  Magic permeated all the universe.  Magic was bound to both mind and body, spirit and flesh, logic and emotions.  Magic was able to shape and unshape the very bonds of reality.  But magic had a price.  Magic would bind the user to the effects of unbounded time.  The more powerful a magic user became, the more he found himself caught in time loops, or living through a series of events far faster than his contemporaries, or worse, far slower.  Caught in these time anomolies, magic users became unperceptable to normal beings, and unable to communicate to anyone in the normal time stream.  They seemed, to the real world, to have just disappeared.  The lesson of Adacor Adderson was known by all: the sorcerer in service to the Paladin King who, within the span of a year, was able to bend reality to his will and create or destroy by thought alone, but unleashing his tremendous power cost him everything, for he became caught in a reverse time anomoly, never to be seen or heard from by mortal ears ever again.  Still, the ability to shape your own reality was quite inticing to some, and, no matter the consequences, here and there, there would appear users of magic, powerful and unrivaled.

The Myth of All Gods

 Meanwhile, all the many gods clammored and roared in their many planes in the many realities they created and shaped about themselves with servants and armies and houses and families until thier planes were full and vomited forth their creations onto and into the other planes  This, of course, led to war and conflict until evil and good fought throughout the dimensions of existence, spilling over from one world into the other with no boundries or seperations.  Only the strongest could hold on to existence, the wars destroyed immortal beings, divine beings meant to last forever consumed by violence never to exist again.  Chaos triumphed.  In this chaos was born Neyarvus, god of air, living a long and violent life until in the chaos Neyarvus was cast out into the void.  In this chaos was born Lophator, god of land, and she lived long and birthed many a civilizations of creatures great and small until she also, in the chaos, was cast out into the void.





















 This state of affairs continued for millenia, until, in the depths of time, finally, a group of nine gods beseeched Qwalita, the creator, and she brought forth Peotor, the Counter, the Time Keeper, and he captured first, Neyarvus, god of the sky, and then Lophator, god of the land and stole them away to his home, Diathalatos, the Shrouded Realm.  There, the god of Life, I’lwairl Corecor, planted the seed of life deep inside Lophator but his magic would have to wait until the coming of Crasp, Yeesha, and Ponus, who pulled Lophator away from Neyarvus enough to give birth to the magic planted by I'lwairl Corecor.





  Magic spilled into reality in unprecedented proportions and it formed The Whirlpool of Danube in the Land of Fortune.  I'lwairl Corecor opened the first portal to Lophator from the fey wild, and the fey poured through filling the land with creatures, good and evil, great and small.  The elves and the dwarves established military kingdoms and were charged to protect the Whirlpool of Danube.

   Aphotos the necromancer, having studied long the arts of raising the dead, tapped into the primal source of magic and power that was centered at the Whirlpool of Danube in the center of the Land of Fortune.  He stretched out his hand to sieze that power and discovered quickly that the entire land was protected by the fey, elves, and dwarves.  Great armies of elves and dwarves quickly arose that squashed the necromancers legions of undead.  Wizard gnomes and druid halflings arose to contend against his own magical arts and he was soundly defeated.  Aphotos the necromancer fled to the east.  There he brooded and returned to his evil arts and plotted his revenge.  It was not long until another came fleeing along the same path he had come fleeing.  There he found, wounded and humiliated at the hands of the same elves and dwarves and the same powerful magic of the fey, Orobrix the green dragon.  Using flattery and bribery, Aphotos the necromancer cajoled Orobrix the green dragon into joining his nefarious plots of revenge.  That evil god Hode, creator of the orcs, enraged that Lophator was hidden from the eldar gods and protected by the Cor, enlisted the aid of Thegin,the god of the Orcs, and together they forged The Battle Axe of Rulership and the War Spear of Conquest.  With these weapons they charged into the chaos to find, overcome, dominate and rule Lophator.  But they were repelled by the Cor, majestic angelic beings of lawful good intentions, servants of Qwalita, the Cor were beings of great might and power.  Hode and Thegin, defeated and cast back to their home planes, in great anger and desperation, cast their weapons into the void, where they found their long way through the hidden cosmos onto the surface of Lophator.
  The hobgoblins found the Battle Axe of Rulership and the hobgoblin clerics, shamans, and priests held a competition of War Games to find the strongest hobgoblin to wield the ungodly weapon.  With the Battle Axe, Odalug the hobgoblin general, united the multitudinous companies, battalians, and platoons and raced with war to the Land of Fortune to the Whirlpool of Danube to sieze the power of the world.  Far to the north, the orcs found the Spear of Conquest and straight away Chechin the orc cheif siezed the spear and began his long and bloody path to rule the entire orc nation.  When he was finished, he led his legions to the Land of Fortune to the Whirlpool of Danube to sieze the power of the world.